In an instant the situation had turned sharply for the worse, and everyone's position became perilous. At this rate, it would not be long before they were all wiped out to the last man, buried en masse in the blood-soaked maw of the Primeval Giant Lizard.

Just then, three figures appeared before them. Fei Yangnian was overjoyed at the sight—the newcomers were none other than Wei Zhao, Duanmu Yu, and the Water Lily clone that had been leading the way.

Because the Water Lily clone could not communicate with the plants and trees already tainted by the Primeval Giant Lizard's saliva, their only way to track the beast was by a process of elimination: calculate the creature's territory, then go poke around that territory and hope for luck.

Had they truly had to rely on that clumsy method, it would have taken them at least a full day to find the Primeval Giant Lizard. Fortunately, Bing Wushuang had drawn the beast out, and by calculating its position from the plants that kept losing contact, they had been able to rush over in time.

"Hm?" Wei Zhao swept a glance around and immediately knitted his brows. He had assumed the Primeval Giant Lizard was chasing Leng Leng, yet there was no Leng Leng here at all—instead he saw Bing Wushuang and his two companions.

"Senior, save us!" Fei Yangnian shouted hurriedly. Ever since submitting to the Water Lily Guardian, Wei Zhao had become all but invincible in his eyes; he figured that if Wei Zhao lifted a finger, a mere Primeval Giant Lizard would be nothing worth mentioning.

"Hmph. A trifling Foundation Establishment peak—what good is he?" Xue Jianming sneered with utter contempt. Even he and Bing Wushuang, two Golden Core peak experts, had been driven to helpless fury by this Primeval Giant Lizard. What use could Wei Zhao's arrival possibly be?

Wei Zhao neither confirmed nor denied it. If Xue Jianming alone had been marked by the Primeval Giant Lizard, he would not have spared him a second glance. But Bing Wushuang was among them—and Bing Wushuang was his man. He could not simply leave him to die.

"You mean to save them?" Duanmu Yu hesitated. She did not know what lay between Bing Wushuang and Wei Zhao; she knew only that both Xue Jianming and Bing Wushuang had crossed him before. By any measure of sentiment or reason, there was no need to risk themselves for their sake—the Primeval Giant Lizard was no joke, after all.

"It's nothing. A lift of the hand," Wei Zhao said, and with a flicker of movement he had already charged forward.

"Watch out for the ice threads!" Bing Wushuang called out in warning. But before his voice had even faded, Wei Zhao's whole figure had vanished without a trace. The next instant, when he reappeared, he was already inside the ice-thread cage—and sitting squarely atop the head of the rampaging Primeval Giant Lizard.

The sight made every eyelid in the crowd twitch. That was the Primeval Giant Lizard! One touch of its spittle and you were done for. Was Wei Zhao's nerve really that enormous?

"Reckless fool! Even now he wants to put on a show!" Xue Jianming snorted with the utmost disdain. Even he, a Golden Core peak expert, would not dare such arrogance. Clearly this Wei Zhao fellow was just showing off for Duanmu Yu's benefit—otherwise, why in the world would he ride atop the Primeval Giant Lizard's head?

Wei Zhao paid him no mind. Calm and unhurried, he reached out one hand toward the Primeval Giant Lizard's skull. Everyone assumed he was about to unleash some devastating martial technique; instead, his entire hand sank into it without the slightest obstruction. The scene was rather eerie.

Moments later, the rampaging Primeval Giant Lizard suddenly fell still. Wei Zhao slowly drew his hand back out, and only when it was fully free did everyone see that he now held a gray, hazy ring of something in his grasp.

"What is that?" Fei Yangnian could not help asking.

"A primordial spirit!" Bing Wushuang and Xue Jianming both gasped sharply. Wei Zhao had actually plucked out the Primeval Giant Lizard's primordial spirit—and the whole process had been so effortless. It was simply inconceivable!

"Done." Wei Zhao casually tossed the mass of primordial spirit into his jade pendant space and clapped his hands as if nothing had happened. He gave the impression not of having dealt with a ferocious beast like the Primeval Giant Lizard, but of having tidied away a piece of trash. That, and nothing more.

The others exchanged glance after glance. A deathly silence filled the area; apart from the ceaseless sound of swallowing, no one could produce a single word for quite some time.

Staring at the Primeval Giant Lizard lying limp and motionless on the ground, Xue Jianming swallowed hard and, looking at Wei Zhao in utter shock, stammered, "You... how did you do that?"

Wei Zhao glanced at him and said blandly, "It's just a brainless spirit beast. Is that so difficult?"

"Very difficult..." Bing Wushuang said earnestly, and Xue Jianming and Duanmu Yu wore the same expression.

True enough, the Primeval Giant Lizard was an exceptionally brainless spirit beast. Its individual strength was immense beyond measure, and in stark contrast to that, its primordial spirit was pitifully frail. It was no exaggeration to say that this Primeval Giant Lizard, which stood above the vast majority of Golden Core peak experts, had a primordial spirit that could not even compare to an ordinary person's—perhaps not even a three-year-old child's.

Even so, a primordial spirit was not something one could simply yank out at will. Unless it left the body of its own accord, no matter how weak a primordial spirit might be, so long as it remained hidden within its physical shell it was as impregnable as a fortress of iron. At least, in everyone's understanding, there had never been a single precedent for such a thing.

To give a simple example: experts like Bing Wushuang and Xue Jianming could crush a crowd of ordinary people with a flick of a finger, yet if they were asked to pluck out any ordinary person's primordial spirit out of thin air, that would be utterly impossible—even a Nascent Soul old monster would be hard-pressed to say for certain.

The hardest part of it all lay in how to completely sever the connection between the primordial spirit and the physical body. That connection was a tangled web of a thousand threads and ten thousand strands, inseparable and unbreakable—like a person standing on the earth, inevitably bound at every moment by its gravity. To make a primordial spirit leave its physical body entirely was the equivalent of flinging a person straight off the earth's surface into outer space; only then could one truly escape gravity.

After all, Wei Zhao himself was nothing more than a primordial spirit. He had no rocket-like booster to rely on. No matter how great his strength, he could hardly hurl a person into outer space with his bare hands, could he?

Yet the reality lay right there before them. No one knew exactly how Wei Zhao had done it, but done it he unquestionably had.

The implications of that alone were enough to send a chill down one's spine at the mere thought.

The others were one thing—Bing Wushuang was Wei Zhao's man, Fei Yangnian had already eagerly painted his own face with gold and styled himself Wei Zhao's junior, and Duanmu Yu counted as Wei Zhao's sworn friend through life and death. They were merely stunned by Wei Zhao's heaven-defying methods and felt no sense of danger. But Xue Jianming was different. He and Wei Zhao were genuine adversaries. What if Wei Zhao were to turn such an astonishing, world-shaking method upon him? (To be continued.)